American and World Report

Have Conservatives Thrown in the Towel?

An interview with Pat Buchanan in the May 17 edition of The Washington Times has evoked a lot of discussion on the various message boards that self-identified conservatives visit. "The conservative movement has passed into history," said the three-time presidential candidate, commentator, and magazine publisher.

He's right.

As a movement, a unifying force, the conservatism that mobilized people to vote in sufficient numbers to give control of Congress to Republicans in 1994 and, with the exception of eight years with Bill Clinton in office, has put Republicans in the White House has lost its momentum.

Since then, the Democrat Party has drifted so far to the left that it needs to change its name to something like, oh, the Socialist Party. Worse yet, what passes for the Republican Party today has drifted to the left with them. Not as far, but enough to become the party of Big Government and Big Spending.

And here's where it gets fuzzy when one defines "conservatives." Much of Buchanan's lament was devoted to the erosion of moral standards. "American culture has become toxic and poisonous," he said, referencing the garbage coming out of Hollywood and seen on television, although he also noted the reduction of the power of the States as enumerated in the Constitution. Today, the States are in the grip of the federal government thanks to sweeping judicial decisions that deny them the right to decide their own policies.

Today, when people think of "conservatives", the popular perception is that of religious fundamentalists concerned with moral issues. While they are among the most vocal, there are many more conservatives for whom religion is merely a component of their lives. For them, the traditional conservative issues such as Second Amendment and property rights, privacy, fiscal prudence, and national sovereignty arouse their ire because they have very little traction in Washington, DC these days.

In the popular mind, conservatism is too often about right-to-life and other ethical issues. As the commentator, J. Grant Swank, Jr., put it, "Pat does not recognize the force of Judeo-Christian and other moralist advocates very much alive and well in America."

I suggest, however, that he does, but he also realizes they have relatively little, real political power. Pointing to last year's Republican National Convention, Buchanan noted that among its featured speakers were Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov. George E. Pataki, and former New York City Mayor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, all social liberals. Nor does Buchanan include the neoconservatives who he dismissed as "Wilsonian interventionists abroad; they are big government at home."

One can hope that government reflects the nation's traditional moral values, but that is not the primary mission of government. It must, first and foremost, protect the nation against invasion and its people against harm. The current Republican majority in Congress and in the White House has done nothing about the one issue that will decide the next election or two, illegal immigration that is undermining the provision of education and medical care. It is a major contributor to crime in America. It takes jobs from native-born and naturalized Americans and it exports billions of U.S. dollars abroad.

Conservative think tanks and organizations have watched helplessly as the Republican Party has sucked up every available dollar to insure the reelection of its candidates. They have suffered a disastrous loss of support as conservatives conclude that they are no longer able to have any impact on legislation they favor or oppose.

The irony, of course, is that conservative talk radio has never been more popular, the Fox News Channel continues to gain new viewers, and authors of conservative books are thriving. Yet, when I was on radio recently, successive hosts asked me why conservative issues cannot get a hearing in a Congress hell-bent on spending money on more so-called "entitlement" programs and which continues to throw billions at the failed Department of Education.

That is why Buchanan is right. Conservatism cannot–must not–be defined solely as a reflection of religious values. It is much more than that. Today conservatism is in retreat in the halls of Congress and in the White House.

Too many conservatives have thrown in the towel, feeling helpless to influence those elected to protect their property rights, stop the destruction of our educational system, protect their right of privacy against an ever-growing, intrusive Big Government, and to withdraw from a malignant United Nations bent on destroying our national sovereignty.

A lot of us who identify ourselves as conservatives are increasingly pessimistic about the future of this nation. We have good cause, but we have few friends in Congress to advance our cause and the White House continues to use external threats and a mix of religious rhetoric to emasculate conservatism.